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Byron Shire
March 28, 2024

Camp complaint

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It has been my unfortunate experience to have campers in large numbers invade my street over the last six years.

My young family and I are sick of them using our street as a toilet and tip… with the incessant violence, noise, drugs, urinating, vomiting and defecating and the piles of rubbish they leave behind.

It is illegal to camp on council or public land in many other shires. I thoroughly endorse council providing the rangers with the legislative support to clamp down on these parasites.

I read that ‘itinerant camper’ Ms Morgan intends to take Supreme Court action against the Byron Shire Council (Echonetdaily 3 April 2012). Ms Morgan states, ‘I represent and do all the legal paperwork myself – so there will be no cost to the ratepayers from my side when the Council loses’.

Ms Morgan, any time or resources that council allocates to your action will be a cost to ratepayers. I would prefer my rates go somewhere else thank you.

Council’s actions are not directed at the genuine homeless. They are directed at campers who pass through our town at a cost to our local amenity with rarely any financial contribution. Council and rangers are showing sufficient consideration for the genuine homeless, which is not something tolerated in other shires. I don’t like Ms Morgan’s chances of sleeping in her car in the main streets of Sydney when she lodges her action.

Michele Grant (Echo Letters April 3, 2012) complains that ‘Brunswick Heads and Mullumbimby already experience the influx of homeless/transient people during peak holiday periods when patrolling intensifies in Byron’. Michele now you know what it is like for Byron residents 365 days of the year.

How about a lifestyle choice that involves supporting oneself without relying on the taxpayers and ratepayers of Byron Shire?

Bill Mitchell, Byron Bay

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1 COMMENT

  1. Read my rebuttal email and provide a copy to Bill Mitchell. Inform the Moron that a human being in receipt of a disability support pension receives approximately $740 per fortnight – unemployment benefit is even less. Thus, when human beings with low incomes are obliged to sleep in a vehicle because rents are in excess of 100% of a pension and unfurnished premises with 12 month leases are as rare as a virgin in a brothel – it is not a “lifestyle choice”. Unlike the majority of human beings who sleep in their vehicles, I am not 100% dependent upon the taxpayers (Centrelink); thus have the ability to rent a premises more expensive than your average ‘car-sleeper’ – should the residential rental ever become available – and the owner accept one as a tenant. Whilst my “lifestyle choice” would be to not reside with a stranger as a “flat-mate”, last week – out of desperation – I viewed a two bedroom premises advertised for $450 p.w. The unit had the toilet built in the lounge area as an after thought; pardon one for not making that “lifestyle choice”. I also viewed a tiny bedsit in Bangalow – $280 – which had dirt and water stains running down the walls from the ceiling because the landlord failed to clear gutters; and access to the flat was prohibitive for a disabled person – such as myself (both knees reconstructed, left arm disabled and spinal injuries). Suggestion: that the Echo should challenge Bill Mitchell to find a clean, habitable one bedroom residential rental in Byron Bay that is unfurnished and has a 12 month lease; and I will make it ‘easy’ for the ‘know it all – know nothing’ Mitchell – $250 per week rent = approx 66% of a disability pension (not exactly “affordable”).

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